Cat Got Your Shorts?
by KentouKurige
Summary: Sometimes, Duo really hates his life... Mission Gone Wrong Contains nongraphic references to nudity/boy-parts... also, cross-dressing!


Heyla peoples! So, it's been a really, _really, __**really, REALLY **_long time since I've written anything other than research papers, so please forgive me if it's a little rough... I recently decided I was going to get back into writing and see about getting you guys some updates in various stories, but first off... lets just test the waters, yes? XD This is actually a little bit of a very belated birthday story for a friend... and if you don't know who you are, then shame on you for giving me the baby plot-bunny in the first place! Let me know what you guys think! As I said, I'm pretty darn rusty (I haven't written anything of substance since I last posted something... wow, I think almost 4-5 years?) and I need to get the kinks out before I feel up to jumping back in on a couple of my more involved plots. Please forgive me if my character voices are a little off as well, it's been a couple years since I last had a chance to rewatch the show, and I had to dig my muses out of a closet, so the dust might make them a little stale. And for those of you still loyally hanging in there... know that I have not abandoned even **ONE** of my stories, they will eventually be tended to as soon as I have more free time! The thesis is almost done, guys, I swear! Although, if there really is someone still out there from the beginning... wow... Anywho, on with the little ficlet!

* * *

It really wasn't his idea of a mission... well, not that it wasn't a mission, more that it wasn't really his _style _of mission... you would think it was a mission tailor-made for him, after all he could sneak with the best of them, prided himself on the ability in fact! But this mission was really... well, just a little bit too _wet _for his tastes!

Not that he had much choice in this case. They hadn't really planned to be in this region for very long, but after Trowa had gotten a concussion during their last mobile suit battle, Quatre had insisted on stopping at a nearby beach resort for a few days to give him a chance to rest... they would have been fine, except some enterprising young naturalist photographer had managed to get a shot of Sandrock and Deathscythe towing the inert Heavyarms as they were bringing in the Gundam to conceal it, and OZ had been alerted to their general location. In a highly uncharacteristic manner, the general at the base located closest to the little resort town had reacted in a surprisingly stealthy fashion and moved to quietly cut off their chances of escape...

Only a carefully encrypted message from a stoically frantic... well, a stoically worried... okay, more like stoically unimpressed Heero, had given them any warning that OZ had managed to enring the entire community with troops and was slowly tightening the noose of a trap. Given the fact that the trap was set to spring at any moment, the need to remove themselves, and more importantly, their Gundams from the vicinity was rather urgent, and between injuries and battle damage, they and their Gundams aren't exactly in shape to fight their way out past 2 battalions of artillery and half a dozen mobile suit sqauds!

So the decision was made that a distraction was in order... and given the fact that Wufei had been out of contact for a week on a mission in China with no hint of a return time, and that Heero was operating out of France at the moment an would never make it in time... they were on their own. Sabotaging the base, which was not so brightly built half over the ocean on a rather flimsy (if you were a demolition specialist) pier would give them time to get the Gundams out in the confusion, and the saboteur would be able to escape the town with the evacuees. Given that their only other skilled infiltrator was still occasionally reaching for the 'wrong' door handles while moving about, the job had fallen to Duo... they really needed to stop weeding the less than stellar military leaders out. Yes, it was easy to take them out, but then OZ replaced them with generals that were actually competent!

* * *

It had taken him about 15 minutes to reach the craggy cliffs just to the north of the base. The base was so far south of here that he couldn't really see it, but it was as close as he dared get with the increasingly suspicious patrols. The narrow crescent beaches here were popular with surfers, and he was able to wander in with a small group of young men all toting boards and coolers, with their long sun-bleached hair and surf shirts providing camouflage.

Once away from the road and the patrols, he easily slipped away from the rambunctious teens and slipped down the so called shoreline till he couldn't go any further. From their it was easy enough to skin out of his shorts, leaving himself in an abbreviated wetsuit. After stowing his shorts into a high cleft to keep them from being washed away if the tide should rise, he quickly broke out his gear and checked the time, glaring at the rough surf.

It's not that he can't swim. Of course, L2 wasn't exactly a luxury colony, and he'd never had to learn while growing up. In fact, he'd have considered himself lucky to have a bowl of water to clean up with usually. More often than not, he'd been more worried about finding enough clean water to drink, than bathing while growing up... but when he'd originally agreed to pilot Deathscythe, Professor G had made sure to train him in a number of potentially vital skills, and swimming had been one of them... but there's a huge difference between a brightly lit, clean pool and this... this thrashing abyss of deadly beasts!

With a shudder as he tries not to picture the snaggle toothed jaws of the aquatic behemoths he had been watching on the vids barely a day before, he tucks his braid into his suit and snapping goggles down over his face, he slips into the water. The tiny rebreather is fit between his teeth and he ducks under the next crashing wave. The tiny, powerful underwater jet propeller almost gets dragged away from him by the backwash of the wave, but he manages to keep hold of it as he fights out past the roughest part of the surf. Then, with a suspicious glare at the murky water surrounding him, he flicks it on and sets off at a rapid clip towards the blip on his navigation screen.

It takes him nearly an hour to get out to his destination without being detected by any of the little clipper ships that are cruising about. Once past the edges of the pier, he manages to hook his grappling hook into one of the flood drains on his third try. It's almost as much luck as skill, given the choppy water... while it's sunny and clear, there's a storm brewing just out to sea. It had made for awesome surfing, as he had learned from his temporary companions, but all it was doing right now was frustrating him. Was it actually possible to get seasick without being in a boat?

Once he had hauled himself up out of the water and managed to get the vent open, it had taken him barely 30 minutes to make his secret dash through the bases air ducts undetected, setting charges at critical junctures in the support structure... then he was back at his entry point, glaring down at the grimly gray water as it glittered in the sun.

With another grumble of distaste, Duo slid down out of the vents in the pier supporting OZ's base and lowers himself into the rough waters. Almost immediately, a wave splashes down over his head and pushes him towards one of the pillars, but he manages to flip on his miniature propeller and scoot out from under the pier before he could be dashed against the support structure by the unforgiving waves, and once more hangs on grimly as the tiny jet hauls him zippily back from whence he came.

He's detoured slightly on the way back to avoid a team of OZ soldiers performing some type of aquatic manuevers, and the delay is enough that he curses muzzily around his rebreather... he had set the charges to give him enough time to be well clear of the beach when they blew, but now he'll be lucky if they don't go before he can make it to shore...

* * *

He's only half right with his estimate though... the sand is gritty beneath his toes as kicks off his water shoes in the ankle deep surf, rebreather and prop already relinquished to the ocean. He grumbles in distaste as he discovers he's lost the tie on his braid at some point, and the bottom half has unraveled, but luckily he always tucks some spares into his pockets, and he'll be able to rebraid it once he's ditched his mission gear.

His blue bathing suit shorts seem to have moved slightly out of the cleft, and he's glad that the brisk wind didn't whisk them away entirely, or alert anyone to their presence with a betraying flutter of color... he shucks out of his wetsuit just as the first distant echo of an explosion breaks the air. He can hear alarmed cries from further up the beach as his surfing entourage exclaim over the noise. Another charge echoes over the water as he hurriedly wraps the suit around its own weight belt and flings it out as far as he can.

Alarms blare and he dashes nude up the narrow strip of sand to the series of rocks that ascend to his little nook... his arm reaches up to snatch his shorts so he can join the mob of surfers once more and...

"Hell..." Duo mutters, eyes wide as he looks up in disbelief. He can't reach his shorts? He glances around to see if maybe he's missed a stepping stone, and his extended hand settles onto the edge of a crevice to steady himself... "Hey, isn't that where I put...?"

He trails off and glances upwards once more in shock at his hand resting in the cleft where he had wedged his shorts bare hours before... and beyond that to his pants, which are seemingly _wriggling _at him tauntingly from at _least_ 3 feet higher!

"What the?..." Duo gapes, and then nearly chokes as his suit gives a definite heave, and there is suddenly a pair of eyes staring down at him contemptuously from a patchy colored little furry face.

"Hey! Cat!" Duo hisses. He gives a little jump and uses the crevice as handhold to heave himself up as he starts to climb the nearly smooth and vertical cliff-face. "Those are mine!"

The cat grumbles out a growl, eyes narrowing and ears going back, and stands crouched on the shorts... it's little black tail lashes as Duo reaches up to take it's nest... with a hiss, it swipes its sharp claws at Duo's fingers as they brush the edge of his shorts.

"Ow! Dammit, I need those!" Duo yelps, making the mistake of drawing back his hand to nurse his scratches. Quick as a flash, the grumbling feline leans down and sinks it's teeth into the hem of his pants, and then proceeds to start climbing up the rock face. Duo gapes in disbelief, struggling to get going again as the cat manages to drag his shorts away further and further, using gaps too small for a human.

"Cat! Dammit, cat!" Duo yelps, watching in stunned horror as the furry thief disappears into a narrow cleft, dragging his bathing suit in. He slides back down the rock face, his cobalt eyes wide. Behind him he can hear a sort of strange, hollow splooshing noise that he assumes means the charges did their job and the out of sight base has collapsed into the water. Up the beach the surfers are still exclaiming in alarm as OZ patrol boats and mobile suits begin to swarm. And Duo Maxwell stands motionless, staring up at the last place he saw his only clothes disappear.

* * *

He'd finally shaken himself out of his shock when the road above the cliff was strafed by a Leo. The dash back up the beach in only his birthday suit had set his heart to pounding... while a boy at the beach was innocuous enough that he might have pulled off hiding in plain sight, a naked boy at the beach was memorable enough that he wouldn't be able to escape notice. It had taken all his skills, but he'd managed to streak (literally) through the boulder strewn sand and conceal himself well enough to sneak past the gaggle of surfers, all of who were busy postulating the cause of all the hubbub.

Not daring to ascend the dirt road back up to the streets in his birthday suit, he'd continued further up the coast, till the narrow sandy beach had opened up and the cliffs had fallen away into a sand-dune. Here, several drab beach houses cluster, and a handful of sunbathers dot the shore. Duo is quick to duck up the first path through the dunes he comes too.

The house on the other side of the path is a little worn, but it's occupied... in fact their is a faint bass thumping of music and he can see more than a dozen people mingling inside. His heart soars to notice a number of articles of cloth fluttering on the laundry line near the shed he's ducked behind, but plummets when he sees that its all towels and girls bikinis... the only gender neutral clothing in sight are a couple pairs of socks kicking at him tauntingly.

"Dammit... can anything else go wrong?" Duo mutters, and then curses himself as he hears the roar of a clipper scout on the other side of the dune... and the diesel grunts of a military convoy surging up the street in front of the house. Desperately, his eyes dart around looking for escape, and he groans as his mind supplies him with only one course of action...

* * *

Duo grins as if he isn't cursing internally... he keeps his hands clasped firmly on the handles of the woven beach tote he snatched up. Otherwise he knows he would be fidgeting with his clothing...

The bathing suit he had snatched from the line in his desperate dash hadn't been the skimpiest possible luckily... but while it was the most modest of the bunch, it was still a bikini, unfortunately. A rosy cream colored bikini with tiny rosy printed ruffles around the edges. Thankfully, it wasn't a thong, or else he'd never be able to pull it off... not that pulling it off wasn't uncomfortable! He winces again, fighting not to walk straddle-legged. Once he'd been covered enough to pass a casual glance inspection, he'd stepped back up to the line and liberated the most concealing thing he could find... a sheer cover-up summer dress that would at least help to disguise his lines with concealing motion, even if it wouldn't do much good otherwise.

A glance at himself in a reflective window had sent him cringing back to the line, where quick improvisation using a pair of ankle socks and sand had provided him with at least the illusion of breasts. For all his long hair, Duo was undeniably masculine, and this desperate ruse was a long shot at best. After carefully adjusting his new 'cleavage', he'd snatched up the old beach tote. The flower printed ribbon tied around the decorative bags handles had migrated onto the end of his redone braid, while the bag itself was held before him to disguise his lower anatomy further.

"If I make it out of this it'll be a miracle..." he murmurs, still maintaining his 'carefree' smile as he closes the sliding door behind him and wanders through the party. Most of the young men and women are pretty wasted, so maybe it's not so surprising that he has two friendly masculine arms thrown over his shoulders as he transverses the kitchen... he's just glad none of the others are there to hear him squeak when the surfer in the hall pinches his butt! Their alcohol laden breath against his face as they speak to him is excuse enough. He almost has a heart attack when a blonde in the living room drags him down onto his lap though, and barely refrains from punching the man as extracts himself...

He manages to weave through the crowd to the front door, where he slips his feet casually into a pair of flip-flops and exits the building, responding to the various loud farewells with a jaunty wave. Then he's out on the street, almost 20 minutes from their last safe-point with OZ soldiers swarming the streets... and by now, Quatre and Trowa have probably long cleared out, taking the Gundams... and his clothes... to safety.

"Out of the frying pan and into the fire... " Duo groans, watching a trio of Leos soar past to settle on a hill near the main road. Then with a deep breath, he draws himself up straight, reaches down to check that everything is as concealed as it can be... then steps down the porch steps and _sashays_ boldly across the street right in front of a troop of OZ soldiers.

By the time Duo manages to walk into the heart of town from the beach houses, he's pretty sure his face is stuck in an guileless grin, and he's starting to get a headache from how tight his muscles are clenched in anxiety... and if he thought he wanted to walk bow-legged before, he was deluding himself... but aside from a lot of soldiers staring at his butt for some strange reason, and a couple crude comments about his somewhat disappointing bosom and less than stellar looks which he's pretty sure he wasn't meant to overhear, no one has seemed overly suspicious... It takes him a couple hours but he manages to snitch a couple bills from the tip jar at a little coffee house, and then finagle his way onto a bus that, after a few tense moments during the search at the roadblock, takes him out of town.

By the time he ditches the bus and manages to 'borrow' a beaten up old jalopy, it's almost dinner time... he doesn't head straight for the rendezvous point, but instead drives east for a couple hours before ditching the old car for a taxi to the nearest airport... where he once more liberates a vehicle from the long term parking lot. From there he sets out for the next safe point.

The sky is just starting to brighten with the hint of dawn when Duo finally finishes hiking over the last hill before the tiny cabin. He'd ditched the car under a bridge about an hour walk back and he's now cursing the fact that he didn't steal shoes a little more practical than the flimsy flip-flops which he's long since abandoned, seeing as one of them fell apart not long after he started walking. His feet are dirty and sore, and all he's actually shivering in the cool morning air. He can see a light on in the front room of the house, telling him that his friends are waiting up for him.

"Like hell I'm going to let the guys see me in this get-up." Duo snarls tiredly, pressing a straggling strand of his hair out of his face. He slinks down the driveway and bypasses the front walk, skirting around the house till he's on the opposite side from the lit barn. The windows here are all dark, and a quick glance into one shows the silhouette of the foot of a large bed in the light from the window, and a green sweater crumpled on the comforter suggests this is the room that Trowa and Quatre have claimed. The house is supposed to have two bedrooms, and the next window reviews the shadows of a pair of twin beds int he faint moonlight, so he silently tests to see if it's latched. A genuine grin spreads across his face when it slips up in the frame with hardly a whisper. Good spirits returned by things finally going his way for once, Duo pulls himself up over the window sill and rolls into the room with the grace of career thief.

The room is pitch black, except where a narrow slice of moonlight illuminates it, and Duo tiptoes through the swath of silvery light to the duffle bag sitting on top of the dresser at the end of the room, dropping the sheer cover-up dress to the floor as he goes. Quick as flash his hands fly to the zipper and he eagerly opens his bag to retrieve some real clothes, when his instincts flare in warning.

Click. Duo whirls at the sound of a gun cocking, and his hands fly up to shield his eyes as the lights in the room flare to life.

"Maxwell?!" a digruntled, disbelieving voice croaks in a sleep-worn tone. Duo blinks rapidly to clear the spots from his vision, and squints towards the bed closest to the wall with his heart sinking. There is a clatter out in the front room, and he can hear at least one set of footsteps hurrying towards them through the house.

Wufei's puzzled expression is compounded by a confused little frown. His hair is mussed on one side, half pulled from its tail, and he looks utterly exhausted as he stares at Duo from over his extended gun. It looks like he hasn't slept since the last time Duo had seen him. Slowly the sleepy fog in his dark eyes starts to clear, and his grumpy almost glare sweeps Duo from head to foot. Wufei's face twists and Duo's heart absolutely plummets.

"I can explain!" Duo yelps, as Wufei's eyes linger on his lopsided 'chest', flick to the ratty floral bow so gaudily adorning the end of his braid, skirt quickly past his barely contained groin, and flick to the silky, see-through sun dress abandoned near his feet, before flicking back up to Duo's mortified face. The expression of disgust twists into a parody of a grimace, and then... Wufei chokes on a snicker.

Duo gapes, barely registering Quatre's voice calling his name eagerly from the hall as Wufei's muffled chuckles evolve into full out laughter. A pout pulls at his lips as Wufei drops his gun to wrap his arms around his stomach, rolling onto his side and pulling his knees upwards as his hilarity evolves into full out guffaws that rob him of his breathe. The door to the room opens to admit Quatre and Trowa. By this time Wufei is gasping for breathe and shakily pointing at Duo. Duo gives into his pout and sulkily crosses his arm over his chest, blushing when he realizes he never removed his jury-rigged sandbag prosthetics, and that one has leaked out its sand leaving him woefully uneven. He looks at Trowa, standing frozen and expressionless but with a tenseness about his lips and a glitter to his eyes that leads Duo to believe he's on the verge of a smile, to Quatre who is staring at him with cerulean eyes wide and mouth gaping in a most ungentlemenly fashion, and then back to Wufei who seems to be in danger of suffocating as he rolls helplessly amidst his sheets.

"If anyone tells Heero about this, I'll kill them." Duo promises lowly.

"Tells Heero about what?" A monotone voice emerges from the shadow a the hall, and Duo closes his eyes in disbelief as it continues in a tone almost layered with surprise with "Duo, what are you wearing?!"

"That's it! I give up! Quit!" Duo finally explodes, ripping the frilly top off and then struggling to strip off the bottoms despite Quatre's squeak at the sudden strip show. "No more! I'm done! The next time this happens, I'm running from OZ naked!"

Behind him, a nearly hysterical Wufei wheezes about the ugliest girl he's ever seen while Trowa incites him to breath in a monotone.

* * *

So, little rusty, but there it is! Hope you at least got a little giggle out of it, sorry if it's not up to my previous standards. Let me know what you think guys, and what I need to work on most to get the kinks out of my writing. Since most people won't be able to tell, this story evolved from one of my friends giggling over her cat pawing at her Duo-posters shorts... which evolved into us deciding the cat wanted to _steal _Duo's shorts... and it sort of got melded with a conversation we had over which of the Gundam pilots could pull off dressing like a girl under certain circumstances.

As you can probably tell, I'm of the opinion that despite his hair, Duo is entirely too masculine to pull off a pretty girl. He could probably do a girl well enough if enough effort and the right clothes were involved, but I happen to think that he has one of the most masculine faces of the pilots, so therefore he'd never make a great girl. So in addition to telling me how I did and what I need help with... I'd also love to hear which of the pilots you think _could _pull off the best female-disguise with the least effort. See you guys around soon, hopefully, though working on my thesis I don't have tons of time for much these days!


End file.
